Keyshia Cole and Charlie Wilson may have been entertaining on Essence Festival’s Mainstage, but that didn’t keep hundreds from packing out the Superdome’s Coca-Cola Superlounge to witness Faith Evans sing from her enviable arsenal of hits on Saturday night.

Looking super-fit and super-fly in a glittering green dress and hot pink stilettos, the 40-year-old “R&B Diva” and former “First Lady of Bad Boy” opened her set with truncated, yet high-energy versions of “Burnin’ Up” and “All Night Long.” Accompanied by three background singers, a DJ, five-piece band and a trio of horn players, Ms. Evans was effusive in her praise for “The Faithfuls” who drove and flew in and kept the convo between numbers sweet and succinct: “I ain’t gon’ too much talking cuz’ I got a LOTTA joints, y’all ready to have a good time?”

The hour-long set was chock-full of favorites from Faith: fans enthusiastically sung along verbatim to medley-style versions of “You Used To Love Me,” “You Gets No Love,” “Come Over” and even the chorus from her debut CD bonus cut, “Reasons.” One of the many highlights was the “babymaker” ballad, “Soon As I Get Home,” being accompanied by a surprise duet partner, new “R&B Divas” L.A. cast member Kelly Price, who riffed off the bridge and chorus as fans shouted “AlRIGHT Kelly!” and “SING Girl!”

Faith allowed her band and singers to get plenty of shine, but it was Ms. Evans’ obvious enthusiasm, perfectly-pitched soprano and gratitude for her Faithfuls that demonstrated why she’s transcended setbacks and remained revered and relevant nearly twenty years after dropping her debut. “I Love You” was dedicated to the fans (“I thank God for all of y’all”), “Never Gonna Let You Go” was delicately rendered and songs like “Tears of Joy” and “Again” were spun into a gospel-flecked testimonies expressing the performer’s thankfulness for surviving “life’s many ups and downs.”

But as cathartic as that moment became, fun and funky was how Ms. Evans closed out the show, dancing up a storm to the infectious “Mesmerized” and inviting fans to join her onstage for club fave “Love Like This.” One after the other, at least two dozen starstruck Faithfuls took turns singing verses into the mic, embracing their idol and falling into a soulful dance mob that mimicked Faith’s moves and the DJ’s party lines (“Broke people, be quiet, all the chickenheads,be quiet!”) before departing into the balmy night.